Two Murdered in Pakistan

by Peter Riddell

On July 19, 2010, two Christian brothers accused of distributing
blasphemous material were gunned down on the premises of the sessions court
in Faisalabad,
Pakistan. Rashid Emmanuel, a 36-year-old pastor, and Sajid Masih Emmanuel,
30, had been running United Ministries Pakistan for the last two years in
the Christian
community of Dawood Nagar. Their murder represents the latest episode in the
ongoing troubles of Pakistani
Christians.

A member of a shadowy Islamist group reportedly told police that
the two had distributed blasphemous leaflets in a city bus stand. Rashid Emmanuel
agreed
to meet an anonymous caller, only to find himself surrounded by police carrying
photocopied papers denigrating the prophet Mohammad and purportedly bearing
the signatures and phone numbers of the two brothers. They were taken into
police
custody on July 2 and charged with blasphemy under Section 295-c of the Pakistan
Penal Code.

Within days of their arrest, Muslim groups began calling for the death penalty.
Hundreds of Muslim youth marched into Dawood Nagar, throwing stones and bricks
at the Waris Pura Catholic Church and shouting insults at Christians and Christianity.

An Asian Human Rights Commission press release pointed to the mosques as the
source of the incitement:

Muslim extremist groups . . . made announcements through
the mosque loudspeakers asking Muslims to gather at the district courts
building
when the
Christian brothers would be produced. They also spread rumors one day before
that the Christian brothers would be free to go home from the Civil Lines
Police Station, Faisalabad.

In fact, the police were set to exonerate the two brothers because a handwriting
examination by the prosecution showed that the signatures on the leaflets did
not match the brothers’ signatures.

As they emerged from the court after the proceedings, five armed, masked men
opened fire on them, killing both and severely wounding a member of their police
escort. The shooters escaped into the crowd.

In the wake of the killings, protests by Christians erupted in Dawood Nagar.
In response, further announcements were made from local mosques asking people
to come out to fight “rampaging” Christians, according to Pakistan’s
Dawn newspaper.

The events were noticed at the highest levels in Pakistan, with President
Asif Ali Zardari instructing the authorities in Punjab to investigate the murders,
and asking the provincial government to pay suitable compensation to their
families.

However, such statements do little to assuage the concerns of Pakistan’s
Christian community about the ongoing injustices meted out under Pakistan’s
blasphemy laws. Since their enactment in 1986, over 120 Christians have been
charged and left to languish in prison while awaiting trial. Other victims
of these laws have included members of other religious minorities, as well
as some
Muslims whose approach to their faith earned the displeasure of the religious
authorities. Fr. Aftab James Paul, director of Interfaith Dialogue and Ecumenism
for the Catholic diocese of Faisalabad, said that “almost all blasphemy
cases are false and fabricated.”

In response to the incitement from the
mosques, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s
Christian Federal Minister for Minorities, has proposed draft legislation against
preaching hate and printing or distributing hate material. However, a Muslim
cleric, Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi, said that Bhatti’s comments were in
themselves blasphemous, adding, “It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers;
rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits
it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for
the blasphemer.”

Peter Riddell is Senior Fellow with Kairos Journal and serves as Professorial Dean of the BCV Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths of the Australian College of Theology in Melbourne, Australia.

“Two Murdered in Pakistan” first appeared in the September/October 2010 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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